Morning Brief — July 12, 2013

Today’s Morning Brief is brought to you by Friends of Canadian Broadcasting. Friends will preview a new television ad campaign and release details of a new Nanos poll at an Ottawa news conference next week. More details here.

The Quebec government has promised a $60-million relief plan for Lac-Mégantic. Premier Pauline Marois stressed that immediate access to support was paramount. “You can count on us,” she told residents. “When someone comes to ask for help, we want the cheque to head out that day.”

Meanwhile, faces have started to be attached to the numbers. The first victim of the train derailment to be identified is Elianne Parenteau, 93. She is one of the 24 confirmed dead, while 26 others are still unaccounted for.

It is increasingly likely that Canadian foreign service officers will continue to strike into the fall session, unless the government comes back to the negotiating table, according to the union. The union is demanding equal pay for equal work because some junior diplomats earn up to $14,000 less than colleagues doing the same work in Ottawa.

Senator Marjory LeBreton is in her final days as backup prime minister. When the imminent cabinet shuffle happens, she’ll be bumped out of that role and a new substitute appointed. Although she’ll remain a senator, LeBreton announced last week that she is stepping down as Senate leader but didn’t say when.

As Canada’s military continues its five-year investigation into charges that its officers told subordinates in Afghanistan to ignore cases of child abuse, that country’s former ambassador to Canada says both countries are guilty of ignoring the scandal. Canadian soldiers said they saw Afghan officers bringing boys in robes and makeup back to their bases.

Now this is a head-scratcher. It seems the same consultants that crunched numbers for the Harper government on the troubled F-35 program are branching out to give advice to Public Works on warships. Public Works Minister Rona Ambrose announced that KPMG has been hired to give third-party expert opinions as projects unfold under the massive National Shipbuilding Procurement Strategy. And why not? It worked out so well the last time.

The frenzied chaos of Egypt’s latest revolt has abruptly given way to the torpor of the Muslim month of Ramadan, a time of feasting as well as fasting during which Egyptians sleep late, work little and party through the night. With Ramadan underway, Egyptians are optimistic a new era is about to begin.

Here and there:

Nova Scotia Premier Darrell Dexter will attend a change of command ceremony for Maritime Forces Atlantic in Halifax this morning.

Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau is back from Calgary and with Mitzie Hunter, Ontario Liberal candidate for Scarborough-Guildwood today.

And, the Calgary Stampede wraps up on Sunday.

In Featured Opinion today:

The Washington Post’s Anne Applebaum bemoans the lack of follow-through among protest movements from Brazil to Turkey to Egypt once the face paint is washed off. While social media makes drawing a crowd easier than ever, writes Applebaum, “real change requires the founding of institutions, of political parties, of news organizations, of local and neighbourhood associations, of economic clubs and discussion groups that think about the interests of the nation, not of a single group or faction.”

Writing in Foreign Policy, former senior U.S. negotiator Robert Einhorn says we don’t yet know what impact the election of former nuclear negotiator Hasan Rouhani as president of Iran will have on the current stalemate in nuclear talks.

David Krayden says Tory backbencher Brian Storseth just isn’t getting enough credit from the NDP and Liberal caucuses for his private member’s bill, C-304, which received Royal Assent on June 26. The bill repealed Sec. 13 of the Canadian Human Rights Act, which included a key provision defining hate speech. The parameters of the provision were so broad, argues Krayden, “as to allow swimming space for a blue whale.”

Alberta Premier Alison Redford may have more in common with former Australian PM Julia Gillard than she’d like to think, given Gillard’s recent unceremonious ousting, posits David Wise. The two leaders, both highly intelligent lawyers, were the first women to serve in their respective posts and both have enjoyed greater popularity outside than within their jurisdictions.

“Five years after the financial meltdown,” observes Clive Crook of Bloomberg View, “the global economic recovery is hardly worthy of the name.” Crook blames the enduring calamity on two great failures of coordination, first on the international cooperation front and second in the lack of co-management of different strands of policy at the national level. “That’s something governments have been unable or unwilling to do,” he writes.

Having won a new seat in Westside-Kelowna Wednesday, B.C. Premier Christy Clark is now on the hunt for a new house. Although she has a cat, she’s looking for a non-smoking, no-pets house. Guess the kitty didn’t make the cut.

Finally this morning, here’s a message that’s floated full circle. When 10-year-old Sidonie Fery put a message in a bottle and launched it into the waters off Long Island, she likely never envisioned the bottle would find its way to her mother. Twelve years later, Sidonie is now dead and the bottle has washed ashore among Superstorm Sandy debris, just about a mile or two from where she tossed it — and it’s her mom who’s received the message.